Hekate Soteira, A Study of Hekate’s Roles in the Chaldean Oracles and Related Literature. by Sarah Iles Johnston

Abstract

Gods and peoples do not give each other up without a struggle. During the thousand years following the temples and plays of Classical Greece, when the Gods slept no further away than Olympus, inclination toward Neoplatonic philosophy made those Gods that survived transcendent, removing them to the celestial sphere above the moon. Hekate was a survivor. In the minds of many ordinary people, she always remained the chthonic goddess of the crossroads and source-protectress for witches; but to a select cadre of philosophers and theurgist-magicians, she became the intercessor between the celestial deities and the world of man, and furthermore, the Cosmic Soul from which each human’s soul flowed.